By Mehdi Marrakchi (YES 2019–2020, Tunisia, hosted by PAX in Westerville, OH)          

“I hope you will enjoy the show.” When Latifa, my show director, said those words I knew I only had five seconds to go. After five seconds, and I stepped through the door to my first theater show. I was scared at first, but as I said the lines I spent hours and hours rehearsing, I grew more confident.

It seemed as if this was only another rehearsal, on another fun afternoon with my friends. The only difference was that I had people watching my performance, which shouldn’t and wouldn’t affect my behavior. When I understood that, I got into my artsy character, and chose to be bold, to be special, and to be funny. The 25 minutes of the show went by without me even noticing them, I had laser focus, but people laughed, and we managed to be funny. But when we said our final lines, together, I knew it was over. 

I froze for a second, not knowing what to do. And that was when I experienced one of the most thrilling experiences of my whole life. The public started clapping, shouting, and encouraging us. We were done, and we did well. Just as Latifa promised, we did great. My first experience as an actor went smoothly, better than I ever expected. I heard people congratulating me, on how talented I was. People started asking for my name, started to care, because we had one passion in common: theater. That's when I realized how awesome drama is and I'm glad I got to try it.